by K. L. Kreig
She snorted, unable to help her reaction and unable to believe this was really happening. “Why? So you can kill him? I think I’ll take a pass on delivering that message.”
He continued, unfazed by her derision. “Tell him to meet me at the Reverie in four days’ time. Midnight.”
The uncanny similarities between Rom and Taiven were many. In looks, build and personality. Apparently the Dietrich men thought they could command anyone to do anything at any time and they would jump. No questions asked. Well, just like Rom, Taiven needed someone to knock him down a peg or two. Or a hundred.
“No.”
He regarded her with the same cool look that Rom had given her dozens of times already. “You will if you want him to live, female.”
Then he was gone.
Sarah woke with a start, heart beating out of her chest, veins swarming with adrenaline. Thoughts and emotions swirled like a violent tornado through her head. Rom had a brother. She’d talked to him. He knew her. He was the one all along, not Rom. He was the shadow in her dreams. The thought made her sick.
He’d touched her.
He’d wanted her.
Oh God.
Why on Earth would Rom’s brother have been the one in her dreams all these years? Yet now that she’d met him, she knew it to be true. Only in this last dream she’d had of him before she’d mated Rom did he ever show any interest in her in a sexual way. All other times she’d felt safe, protected. Watched over.
Why did she believe him when he insinuated he was trying to help Rom, even though everything else about him creeped her out?
She thought back to Seraphina’s cryptic words. “You are the only one who can save him.” Was this what she had meant or was it something else? God, she was so confused.
She tried moving but was pinned to the mattress tightly by two solid arms and a heavy leg thrown over hers.
“What’s wrong, beauty?” a husky voice rasped in her ear, setting her body on fire in a totally different way. Would his every touch and every word always affect her like this, she wondered. If she was lucky, the answer was yes.
Should she tell him about the dream? Was it a trap? Or was Taiven really trying to help save Rom’s life? She believed the latter to be true.
“I had a dream,” she replied.
“Mmm,” he nibbled on her earlobe. “Did it involve you riding my cock? Because mine did.” His left hand was now roaming over her nakedness, leaving tiny goose bumps behind.
She stifled a moan. They needed to talk, not spend hours making love, even though she’d like to simply forget the whole disturbing conversation she’d just had with his brother and do just that. She would leave out the part, however, about how he’s haunted her dreams for the last twenty some years and she’d mistaken his brother for him.
Well … here goes nothing.
“No. It was about Taiven.”
Chapter 44
Rom
His hand stilled. His muscles went rigid with fear. “What did you just say?”
She turned in his arms, facing him. “I just had a conversation with your brother, Taiven.”
He couldn’t breathe. “That’s not possible.”
“It’s not possible because? You know I’m a dreamwalker, Rom.”
Fuck.
Jumping out of bed, he began pacing, barely checking the anger and terror washing like icicles through his veins. “Sarah, tell me what the fuck just happened.”
Grabbing the sheet, she covered herself and sat against the headboard, concern and anxiety wafting off her.
“I had a dream about your brother and your father. I think.”
Double fuck.
It seemed they hadn’t talked about a lot before they bonded. They’d not talked about Sarah’s dreamwalking skills yet so he didn’t really know exactly how hers worked. Each of her sisters had slightly different variations of the talent.
“How does your skill work, exactly?”
“Uh … I don’t really know. I have conversations with people. I learn things that they don’t remember telling me because, of course, we talked about it in my dream state and not while awake. It’s always been a pain in the ass, honestly.”
“So you had a conversation with my brother? Just now?”
She nodded, clearly unnerved by his agitation.
“What about my father?”
“No. Just your brother.”
Did they know who she was? If so, he was fucked. They would come after her. Use her as leverage to get to him. She was in terrible danger, and for the first time since they’d bonded, he wished he had waited until he could have taken care of this threat for good. His father would not hesitate to slaughter his mate if he didn’t agree to any crazy-ass terms he threw at him. And if they ever found Sarah, Rom would do anything they asked of him to save her. Absolutely fucking anything.
“Tell me exactly, word for word, what was said.”
“Okay.” Sarah spent the next several minutes reiterating what happened and now he was absolutely beside himself. His brother knew who she was. He knew she was his mate. He could see her and even Sarah knew this dream was different from any she’d had in the past. How could that be? Where on Earth could he have reaped that skill?
Fucking hell. This was bad.
At one time, he and Taiven had been close. Inseparable. Taiven was only thirty years his junior. But as Taiven had become fully blooded, he began to change. He took on his father’s evil, malicious qualities and even Romaric couldn’t change the path that Taiven had headed down. Another one of the reasons he’d left home and never looked back. How he could be cut from the same cloth as his father and brother were, he didn’t know.
He’d obviously been lucky and inherited his mother’s kind heart, at least in the aspect of respecting human life. Of any life for that matter. Rom was cold, calculating and deadly when he needed to be. But he did not thrive on killing. He never had. He never would. And that’s exactly what his father wanted to make of him.
A heartless, cold-blooded killer. A mini Makare.
“Are you going to go?” she whispered, unshed tears shining bright.
He stood at the end of their bed, unable to take his eyes off the woman that he’d come to love so. His heart swelled so much he thought it would burst and he had a hard time even remembering how incomplete his life was without her. How she could have wormed her way so far into his heart and soul and psyche within such a short period of time, he had no clue. But whenever he laid his eyes upon her, he literally felt the hardness in him melt away, being replaced by the most glorious warmth only love could possibly bring.
She was scared for him, but he thought just as she did. This was not a trap. What it was exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he would find out.
He’d planned on going to Romania anyway, but would head out a couple of days earlier than anticipated to do his own investigation. And he needed to meet Ainsley before she returned to Romania.
“Yes. I am.”
A stray tear escaped as she tried holding in her sobs. He could feel her anguish and anxiety for him. For them. She silently held out a hand and he climbed back onto the bed, taking her into his arms.
“It will be okay, beauty. This is a meeting. Nothing more.”
“I’m scared. I just want all of this shit to go away so we can be happy.”
“I will make it so. I swear it, Sarah.”
And he would. He would do anything it took, use anybody he needed and kill anyone he had to in order to keep Sarah safe. So he could live the happy life he’d fucking earned.
God help anyone who stood in his path. If his father wanted a heartless, cold-blooded killer, he’d get one. Romaric’s wrath would know no bounds until every damn threat had been eliminated.
And right now … outside of the lords and their mates, everything and everyone was fair game.
Chapter 45
Geoffrey
They sat around a very long conference table, a thirty-page report and maps spread
out in front of them. All courtesy of Circo, Romaric’s lieutenant, who had clearly worked the last twenty-four hours churning data.
Romaric had called an hour ago demanding he attend this strategy meeting and, of course, was blindfolded and ‘escorted’ personally by Romaric’s lieutenant. Very Mission Impossible. Quite frankly, he was surprised to be included at all outside of the information he was gathering and handing over. All the lords were present, as well as their respective lieutenants and a few others he hadn’t met before, and had it not been for one person in this room, he had no doubt only his head would have been in attendance at this meeting. Probably sitting on a gold-plated platter in the middle of the table like a fucking centerpiece. Or a dartboard. The menace aimed his way by every other member in the room was palpable and unmistakable.
He was an unwelcome interloper.
And he did not miss the power pulsing in the room, reminding him that if he made one false move, he would be dead quicker than he could blink. Of course, the very sharp, very long knife, that Damian had laid in front of him, could have clued him in too.
But right now he held all the cards, which was the only reason he was even present. And alive. And he’d been handing them over slowly to the lords, needing to keep a couple of critical ones in his pocket for the right time, for if he showed them too early, his usefulness would end and he’d likely be a dead vamp. And a few weeks ago, he would have actually welcomed it. Now, however … now, he had every reason to want to live. He was desperate to get his Moira. Not that he deserved her, or ever would.
“So there are twenty-one locations, spread out in twenty different states,” Circo stated. Geoffrey hadn’t been exposed to Circo much, but in the bit he had, he already had immense respect for his intelligence. And there were twenty-two locations, as he’d found out last night, but he was going to keep that to himself just a tad bit longer until he did some additional research on this very small, very specialized compound.
“Do we have all the records now?” Damian snarled at Geoffrey.
Letting a smirk turn his lip, he retorted, “All electronic records. Not all paper copies. As you know, this has been going on for some time. Well before electronic recordkeeping, and it would look mighty suspicious if I were to back up a fucking truck to each facility and haul out reams of papers.”
After several tense seconds, Damian sneered, “You’re living on the edge, vampire. And I’m fucking hoping you put one foot over so I can push you the rest of the way.”
Geoffrey held the furious vampire’s glare and smiled. In another life, he had no doubt Damian would be a friend. But the only thing he could hope now is that any time he was around the powerhouse that Damian wouldn’t burn him to a crisp.
He’d taken several liberties at being Damian DiStephano over the years and Damian knew it. Yes, he was responsible for taking Damian’s mate’s mother into captivity. But that had been the mission. Retrieve a powerful witch. And back then, he did what was commanded of him without question, brainwashed into believing it was all ‘for the cause’.
Geoffrey had done countless deplorable and heinous things over his lifetime and he was under no false illusions that his current attempts to right some of the wrongs he’d helped create would absolve him in either the lords’ eyes or his own. Since he’d discovered the level of Xavier’s depravity, whenever the opportunity presented itself, he’d tried to do the right thing. Shit, there were untold lives he’d tried to save and things he’d done that he hadn’t even told the lords about yet. Because a martyr he definitely was not. But he’d spend the rest of his life, what was left of it, trying to atone for his sins. A vamp had to start somewhere, right?
“Damian, we all know your feelings, but we have business to conduct here and like it or not, we need him,” Rom stated flatly.
Yes, they did need him.
The last twenty-four hours had been spent tracking down information on not only the inner workings of the transportation system Xavier had so intricately weaved together, but the astonishing revelation around the chemicals used in the vamps bloodings, and he was exhausted. It took a lot of effort to hold someone’s form when he mimicked and he’d done it countless times over the last day. So much so, that he’d had to break down and feed from the vein of another female, who was not his Moira, so he could continue his efforts. He’d been nearly unable to stomach it. The only way he could get through it was to close his eyes and envision it was Beth’s sweet nectar running down his throat.
“Update us,” Rom commanded.
He bristled but kept it under wraps. He was fucking tired of being ordered around like a dog, but the last thing he needed to do was piss off an entire room of immensely powerful vamps who would just as sooner see his head severed from his body than leave him breathing.
“The human scientists have created a super growth hormone that not only speeds development of the children at an alarming rate, but also seems to give them the bulk, size and skills of an advanced vampire.
“They were successful at developing this formula fifteen years ago and first started experimenting at fifteen and twenty, the second and third bloodings. Just in the last six years they’ve extended those experiments to the babes, but only the ones kept in two smaller locations. They’ve been tweaking the potency to where they can now develop a full-grown vampire within six years’ time, but it has less than a thirty-percent success rate, which is why they don’t inject all the babes, only a small percentage of them. And most disturbingly, the next iteration, they have developed, are for full-blooded vamps to bring them into full power well before age one hundred.”
There was one far more disturbing thing he’d discovered that had been developed decades ago, but he needed to vet that out a bit further before divulging to this group. Because if it were true, it made what he’d just shared seem like a bouquet of freshly cut roses about ready to bloom.
“Christ,” Damian breathed. The look he shot Geoffrey would make lesser vampires cower. “You knew about this, didn’t you, fucker?”
Geoffrey held his glare with one of his own. “No. I did not. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle, but not one vampire is privy to everything, including me. I suspected something was going on, yes, and that’s what I’ve been working to uncover so I could shut it down. But until this week, I’ve been unable to find anything concrete.
“Xavier has singlehandedly created a very complex and siloed system. All locations work in isolation from each other and, no one, vamp or human alike, are even aware there are but one or two additional compounds. Babes are taken from their mothers after birth and are moved from place to place. That was all part of the ruse, of course, to throw everyone off.”
“And how could children be transported from various places without someone figuring this out before?” Devon asked.
That’s what had taken Geoffrey a while to uncover. “Of course Xavier won’t let the humans leave the compounds, so vamps have to transport the children. As I said, everyone involved has only a couple pieces of the puzzle. Let’s say vamp one moves babe one from location one to location three. Vamp one is only ever privy to locations one and three. When it’s time to move babe one to another location, vamp two steps in and moves from location three to location two, for example. Vamp one knows nothing about location two and vamp two knows nothing of location one.”
“Unbelievable,” Damian muttered.
“There’s more. The reason it’s taken me so long to piece things together is because Xavier is as paranoid as a conspiracy theorist. He’s been moving compounds.”
“Christ,” Ren spat. “This just keeps getting worse and worse. How are we supposed to catch a fucking ghost?”
“It’s complex, yes. But I think we can all agree at this point that we’ll simply need to develop a strategy based on what we know today and pull the trigger. Cut off the head, the snake will die. So our primary objective is the fucking head, but we’ll decimate as much of the body as possible and have to deal with what’s left afterwa
rd. Circo, review what you’ve put together,” said Romaric.
“There are one hundred twelve women spread out among fourteen locations. Each compound is noted on your maps as W one through W fourteen and as you can see, they are spread out in fourteen different states. The other seven locations are boarding houses for the children, eighty-nine heads in total, if the records are accurate. On your maps, the locations marked I one and I two appear to be only for the infants, as Geoffrey already discussed, and there are only a dozen infants between the two. At some point, they spread them out to the locations marked I three-I seven. Between all twenty-one locations, there are also between two and fifteen other humans. That information is a little more sketchy.”
“We have to hit all locations at once in order to take Xavier by surprise,” Ren said. “And that’s going to be pretty fucking hard to do, given they are all in different states.”
“Does Xavier have a witch?” Devon asked, looking at him.
Devon would probably kill him on the spot if he found out who was helping Geoffrey, so he simply nodded. “But she is in my pocket and that’s all you need to know.”
“I decide what I need to know, rogue. And we need to understand how powerful this witch is and if she’s going to fuck you, and consequently us, over.”
“She won’t. She’s trying to right as many wrongs as I am.”
The tension in the room increased and Geoffrey felt the not too subtle power Devon and Damian painfully threw his way. He internally grimaced, not wanting to show any outward sign of weakness.
“So with all of the intel now gathered, why do we need you any longer?” Damian snarled.
“Who said you have all the intel?” Probably not the smartest retort, but, Jesus, that vamp got under his skin. If the lords wanted to ensure Xavier was destroyed, along with the compounds, they’d best keep him alive because only he would know his schedule.
The smile Damian gave him was pure evil. “I’m getting hard at the thought of killing you, rogue.”
